


Veritas

by batneko



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Drunken Shenanigans, Drunkenness, Gen, Steve is a baby duck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-09
Updated: 2013-10-09
Packaged: 2017-12-28 21:35:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/996975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batneko/pseuds/batneko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony learns some things about Steve that inspire him to do what he does best.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Veritas

When he felt one of his manic phases coming on, Tony found it best to seek out one of his friends and annoy them for a few hours, at least until the urge passed. Last time he’d been alone while feeling like this, he bought everyone t-shirts with the giant faces of animals that reminded him of them. It turned out, no matter how innocently you meant it, women did not like being compared to dogs. At least the good Captain had liked his “patriotic horse” shirt.

 

The time before that, he’d designed an elevator system for the mansion that everyone agreed was whisper-quiet and the smoothest ride they’d ever felt, but it turned out to cost more to run each time than the old elevators collectively did in a year. Stupid democratic budget meetings.

 

Bruce was not used to stability, and even after a few months living here, still hadn’t quite adjusted to the fact he wasn’t going to have to go running for it in the middle of the night. Tony, on the other hand, didn’t like stability, and made a point of manufacturing his own chaos. But when it came to science they saw eye-to-eye; no mountain high enough. With Pepper on the other side of an ocean for the rest of the week, Bruce was Tony’s best bet for keeping occupied until he no longer felt like he could conquer the world.

 

But, for once, Bruce was taking advantage of his newfound stability. He had politely but firmly kicked Tony out of his quarters yesterday, and a question to JARVIS confirmed that he was, in fact, still entertaining his lady friend today. Well fine. Fine, Tony didn’t need him.

 

Cap... No, not Cap. Natasha, or Cliff? Tempting to Tony’s self-destructive side, but no. No, better not. Thor was gone wherever the hell he went, so that was a no (and he was a bad influence during these moods anyway). One of the SHEILD agents who came and went when they felt like it? Eh, boring, mostly.

 

There was plenty to do in the mansion, especially since no one wanted to go through all the crap most of them had moved in. Tony wandered down to one of the “storage rooms,” this particular one of which was really a fully equipped lab that had been taken over by cardboard and metal containers, labeled with Sharpie or official-looking seals or not at all.

 

Needless crowbar in hand, Tony ripped open the first box. Files, looked like his handwriting. Boring. Next one was like an unexpected punch in the gut (so, most punches in the gut), as he stared at the faded and stained Captain America costume he’d worn when he was six.

 

That had been a memorable Halloween. Before he was old enough to understand it wasn’t his fault that his father got angry, he tried so hard to please him, tried to emulate the hero he spoke so highly of. And it seemed, when he got dressed and headed out to join the revelry, that his father thought it was... cute. Then, hours later, plastic bucket filled with sugar, he came home to a lecture about respecting the memories of the dead. Six-year-old Tony hadn’t realized Captain America was dead. He had nightmares about the costume coming to life and suffocating him for a while.

 

He’d been holding up the costume without realizing it. Who had kept this? Why was it here? The box looked old, wrinkled and water-stained, and there was no label.

 

Digging a little deeper, he found some more Captain America memorabilia. A comic book in a plastic bag, a paperback novel (the illustration was hilarious, and he took it out of the box and set it aside), a pale photocopy of song lyrics, some of those trading cards (how much could he get for these online?), and below all that, what looked like medical files. Odd.

 

This had belong to his father, Tony realized. He’d kept all this, even kept the costume... It seemed being bad at expressing feelings ran in the family.

 

Tony flipped through the medical records idly. Jesus, whoever this was, they ought to have never left the house! Especially back in the- When was this from? Searching for a date, he dislodged a photograph. Grayscale, grainy, but the picture was clear; a scrawny young man who had to weigh about eighty pounds soaking wet. He was shirtless in the picture, and his ribs stuck out like xylophone keys. Even his face was...

 

Wait...

 

That was impossible.

 

There, name in ink, date retracted but Tony could guess. Steve Rogers, the day before the procedure that would make him Captain America.

 

His eyes looked terrified, but his jaw was set. He was so skinny, Tony could imagine him trembling, his sunken chest rising and falling so quickly, like a baby bird.

 

More reading, and more digging in the box, revealed a lot more than Tony had wanted to know about his teammate. His parents both died in service, he’d been sickly if not bedridden for all of his childhood, he’d tried to join the Army a handful of times under different names before stumbling upon the program... Jesus, a man in that bad of shape had to know that going off to war would be a death sentence!

 

Unless... that was the idea.

 

Oh. Oh god. No wonder Cap was so offended by Tony’s attitude. He’d gotten a bit better about that, but they still rubbed each other the wrong way sometimes. No wonder Cap, Steve, really meant his patriotic fervor. It was all he had. This, all of this, the tights and the punching bad guys. It was all Steve had.

 

Tony wasn’t sure how long he sat on the floor, photo in one hand, medical records in the other, before he woke up from his stunned stupor and barked, “JARVIS!”

 

“Sir.”

 

“Call Pepper.”

 

“It is midnight in London, sir.”

 

“Call her.”

 

Pepper sounded more annoyed than groggy when she answered, which meant she hadn’t quite gotten to sleep yet. Which was good, because she was going to hear this, whether she listened to it or not.

 

“Tony, it’s midnight.”

 

“It’s Steve!”

 

“What? Is he hurt or something?”

 

“What? No, he’s made of science and steroids, remember?”

 

“Then what are you-“

 

“He’s a baby, Pepper. A baby duck. Oh god, the shield, of course, I never thought about it before! Of course he’d have a shield as his weapon.”

 

“Tony, you’re not making any sense.”

 

“I don’t have to, it’s midnight.”

 

“Not in New York.”

 

“Well. Shut up. Look. I found a picture of Steve, before the supersteroids.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“He’s a baby duck.”

 

“Well now he’s a swan. You know, one of the really big ones that can break your arm.”

 

“That is a beautiful metaphor, Pepper, you should have been a poet.”

 

“I’m going back to sleep.”

 

“Pepper!”

 

“What?”

 

“What do I do?”

 

“Do you have to do anything? Just because you’ve suddenly decided your teammate is adorable, doesn’t mean you should treat him different. He probably wouldn’t like it.”

 

“But he- He’s got nothing! He’s...” Tony trailed off. He wasn’t even sure what he wanted to say. “I should be his friend. A real one, not just a teammate. I want to be.”

 

“Good.”

 

“How do you make friends?”

 

She sighed. “I don’t know. I used to be friends with the secretaries and assistants. Now I have them getting me coffee.”

 

“Yeah. Nice, isn’t it?”

 

“Well get him coffee, then.”

 

“Coffee? Just hand him a cup in the kitchen? That doesn’t really say ‘dude let’s be bros.’”

 

“Or get drunk together, whatever men do with their friends.”

 

“That. And football, I assume.”

 

“You hate football.”

 

“I like my private box.”

 

“Yes, good, fine. Go to a football game and get drunk.”

 

“You’re a mad genius.”

 

“All settled?” Pepper said mildly. She was getting ready to dismiss him, which was always infuriating and made him swell with pride in the same moment. “Good. Have a good night, Mr. Stark.”

 

Tony glared at nothing for a while. He wished he had a phone so he could throw it. He wished he had non-cellular phone so he could slam it down.

 

He still had the picture of Steve in his hand. How long ago was this, from Steve’s point of view? Not more than six years. In the good Captain’s mind, deep down, he was still this scrawny kid (just like Tony was, when the mood was upon him, a six-year-old being yelled at by his father, a pimply teenager staying up to take apart the TV, a twentysomething wrecking a million-dollar car, a thirtysomething in a cave in the desert...). It made sense. He understood Steve. He wanted him to know that, somehow, that someone did.

 

But there was a problem with Pepper’s otherwise flawless plan. Steve couldn’t get drunk. Alcohol was the great equalizer, the great gogglizer, making life that much easier to handle. And Steve (precious darling Steve), was completely immune to its effects.

 

Well was Tony a genius or wasn’t he? It was all a matter of chemistry. Not his favorite science, but one he’d certainly dabbled in. Every boy should have a chemistry set. Every boy should know the principles behind stink bombs, and have access gallon-sized buckets of the proper liquids to get gym cancelled for a month.

 

Steve must have hated gym class too. If he wasn’t terminally excused from it. Did they even have gym class in the 40’s?

 

Oh Jesus, the 40’s. How drunk did they get in the 40’s? Very? Prohibition was over by then, right? Did they have football?

 

First things first: get Steve drunk. Maybe not football right away, maybe take him out to a nightclub, or a fancy to-do. Cap would look amazing in a tux. He would have to beat the ladies, and probably some of the men, off with a stick. And the thought of Steve flirting was enough to send Tony into hysterical giggles, until he had to sit down on an aluminum box that felt far colder than the room’s temperature ought to allow.

 

Chemistry was the answer. Chemistry, and (he had to dig back into his father’s collection) the most complete records of the supersoldier program available.

 

***

 

“Tony’s been acting strange,” Steve informed Natasha. She looked at him blankly.

 

“That’s Stark. That’s every day.”

 

“More strange. Specifically strange.”

 

Her expression didn’t change.

 

“He wanted a sample of my blood.”

 

She snorted. “Is he going to clone you?”

 

Steve felt a chill of panic. “Can he do that?”

 

“Probably.”

 

He stood up, rolling his shoulders. He hadn’t stretched enough before his last workout. There was something comforting about the fact he could still get stiff muscles, even if it didn’t last long. “I think I’ll go talk to him.”

 

“Want to borrow a knife?”

 

Steve could never tell if Natasha was joking, but felt it best to say, “No, thank you.”

 

She shrugged, and went back to her newspaper. It appeared to be written in Chinese.

 

Tony was in the lab, because he was always in the lab if you didn’t know where he was, but the question was which one. Steve walked through the spotless hallways until he heard the distant strains of “music” and followed that.

 

Tony was singing along, off-key, something about “bad medicine,” while he poured a test tube of something clear into a beaker, equally clear. He might have been mixing water, but the goggles and gloves he had on implied otherwise. Indeed, as he got closer, even Steve began blinking from the alcohol fumes.

 

“Captain Rogers, sir,” the disembodied voice of JARVIS announced. That had stopped creeping Steve out some time ago, although he still couldn’t shake the feeling that there must be a brain in a jar somewhere.

 

“Cap, good timing!” Tony poured the contents of the beaker into what seriously looked like a brandy snifter. But couldn’t be, because that was insane. “Drink this.”

 

“No.” Steve didn’t even hesitate.

 

“Come on, it won’t hurt you. Probably.”

 

“Absolutely not.”

 

“I’m trying to get you drunk,” Tony said, as if that made it better.

 

“Is that something you should tell me?”

 

“Would you be angrier if you discovered you were drunk and I hadn’t?”

 

Steve considered this. “I’d be drunk.”

 

“Trust me, angry drunk is the worst kind of drunk.” Tony’s eyes were obscured by the half-steamed goggles, but there was a look there... “Anyway, just drink it.”

 

“No.”

 

“If you don’t drink it, I’m going to have to experiment with other ways of brain-altering, and you don’t want that.”

 

“I don’t want to be drunk either!”

 

“Not at all?” Tony looked at him like he was crazy. Steve tried to match it.

 

“I wasn’t much of a drinker even before the procedure. And now, I, all of us, have to be ready to go at a moment’s notice. You shouldn’t drink so much either.”

 

“Oh come on, those big last-second scrambles only happen, what, once a month?”

 

Steve crossed his arms. “But you know the one time we’re both falling-down drunk, will be the time we have to disarm a nuclear warhead.”

 

Tony considered the snifter. Swirled it. The fumes made Steve back up a step. “Just a sip.”

 

“No!”

 

“What about after we’ve saved the world, huh?” He set the snifter down, at least. “Save the world, throw a party. Things are usually calm for at least a couple days after a big blow-up.”

 

Steve hesitated, He was right, really, the criminal element seemed to be willing to take a week or so off after one of their number had been especially soundly trounced. “Maybe,” he decided. It depended on how well, or how poorly, things went.

 

“Beautiful!” At first Steve thought it was just a general exclamation of approval, but he realized Tony had picked up the glass again and was tilting it. There was a kind of ring around the inside of the glass where the liquid had settled. “The crystal is already a centimeter thinner!”

 

“What?” Steve backed up another step. “It’s eating through the glass?”

 

“Just dissolving it. You should have drank it quickly, I don’t know what the addition of melted crystal will do.” He picked up a thin metal stick and, very deliberately, tapped the glass as though he were about to give a speech. It shattered, leaving Tony holding a stem, and a glove full of sparkling glass shards.

 

“Tony!” Steve’s initial instinct had been to run, but seeing the glass everywhere and the pinpricks of red on Tony’s wrists triggered his hero instinct. He darted forward, and gently took the broken stem away from him.

 

“I might be drunk on fumes,” Tony admitted. “Should have turned the fan on. I’ll know that next time.”

 

“No ‘next time,’” Steve protested. “I’m not drinking anything that melts glass-“

 

“Crystal.”

 

“And even if I would, I don’t want you hurting yourself again.”

 

“I’m fine.” Tony stripped off his gloves and wiped the little dots of blood where his wrists hadn’t been protected off on his pants. “See? No harm done. This is just a thing that can happen when you refuse to wear a labcoat because they make you look forty.”

 

Steve gave him a Look. “Aren’t you-“

 

“Anyway,” Tony said quickly, “that was the first test run. Clearly it was too corrosive. I can work on that.” He strode past Steve, still staring at him, and flipped the switch for the fan. Belatedly, Steve wondered why JARVIS just hadn’t turned it on automatically once the fumes got so thick. Maybe everything wasn’t wired into him.

 

“I don’t know about this.”

 

“You can still turn it down. But I’m not going to stop working on it.” Tony grinned. Steve recognized that grin. “It’s a race! Science versus science. Booze versus your metabolism.”

 

“And you intend to win.”

 

“I intend to win, followed by gloating.”

 

Steve wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Tony was a teammate and, maybe, a friend, but the procedure that made him this way had been... “Just so long as you gloat where I can’t hear you.”

 

“Fair enough.”

 

That seemed to settle that, so Steve left him to clean up, entirely forgetting he’d meant to ask about cloning.

 

For a while Tony didn’t mention his little project, which gave Steve hope that he’d gotten distracted by something else. Steve certainly was, when a being from another planet popped up in Yellowstone National Park and started trying to talk to bears. It was funny at first. Until the bears didn’t answer, and the being started killing them.

 

Steve was sent to try and talk him (her? It?) down, because Steve tended to get the diplomatic missions. He was backed up by Tony, who was bored and could fly the helicopter, just in case the being didn’t like being reprimanded.

 

At first it was fine. The being couldn’t speak English, but picked up their body language, and drew some diagrams in the dirt. Tony played science interpreter. And apparently whatever the being was showing him wasn’t pleasant.

 

“It would be nice if you warned me!” Steve protested, dodging the being’s sonic blasts.

 

“Sorry, I didn’t think he had a weapon.” Tony leaned around a boulder and fired back, while an invisible beam of sound chipped away at the other side. “I didn’t know he was a weapon.”

 

“So you shot him?”

 

“He wanted to know where our nukes were, a warning shot seemed like a good idea.”

 

“Is that what he was drawing?”

 

The pitch of the being’s sonic blasts changed suddenly, reverberating through Steve’s skull until his vision blurred and his jaw ached. He could hear Tony crying out, and staggered toward him. He’d fallen to his knees, and Steve put a hand on his shoulder, but immediately jerked it back. It felt like when he’d touched an electrified fence as a child, and just like then his hand was numb. The sound must be vibrating Tony’s Iron Man armor, hurting him even worse than if he wasn’t wearing any protection at all.

 

Vibration... Steve touched his shield to Tony’s armor, feeling a curious hum, but no stinging like before. Tony stopped groaning, but didn’t rise. Steve left the shield propped against him and drew the gun that was his last resort.

 

He jumped to his feet. “Hey, asshole!” The being looked at him. “Shut your mouth.”

 

He fired. Tony had used beam weapons, Steve had used his shield. The being wasn’t expecting a projectile. It did managed to dodge the first couple times, but even with his head swimming Steve was a crack shot. The being fell to the ground, chirped like a cricket a couple times, and went silent.

 

“Shut your mouth?” Tony wheezed. He’d popped open his helmet, and was looking up at Steve incredulously.

 

“I- I couldn’t think of anything.”

 

“Not even a nice classic ‘shut up?’”

 

“You shut up,” Steve shot back. A little voice in his head said, ‘this isn’t like you.’

 

Tony laughed though. Long and loud. Nerves, maybe?

 

“Are you hurt?” Steve asked. That should have been his first question.

 

“Oh fine, fine, never better, except there’s two of you.”

 

“What?” Steve glanced around, as if he expected to see a clone standing next to him. “What?”

 

“My vision’s blurry,” Tony said. He’d sat up at least, and was leaning on the boulder. “Aaaand pretty sure,” he closed his eyes, “yep, the spins.”

 

“What?” Steve said again. That little voice was telling him he sounded like an idiot, but he couldn’t seem to control his tongue. Instead of trying further, he walked to join Tony on the boulder, and was surprised when his knees gave out beneath him. “Ow.”

 

“Did that really hurt you?”

 

“Yes. No. I don’t know. I can’t feel much of anything right now.” He touched his face experimentally. “My lips are numb.”

 

“You’re drunk. We’re drunk.”

 

“What?” Repeating the word made it feel stronger. “I’m not drunk. I can’t be drunk. I don’t get drunk.”

 

“Trust me, I am the expert on drunk.” He tilted his head back, the helmet going clink against the rock. “When Thor’s not here. When Thor’s not here, I am the expert on drunk.”

 

“Well... that... You’re stupid. I can’t be drungk. Drunk. I didn’t drunk anything.” This was crazy. His mind was working perfectly, but, for some reason, he kept saying things that sounded moronic. And he was still playing with his lips. Steve dropped his hand into his lap. “Why do you think we’re drunk?” he said carefully.

 

“There have been plenty of studies on the effects of sound on the human brain.” Tony still sounded completely lucid. It wasn’t fair. “It’s entirely possible for the right frequency to temporarily slow down your responses. Much like alcohol.”

 

“But I shot that alien.”

 

“And it took you five tries.”

 

“He dodged!”

 

“Normally you would have been able to predict where he’d dodge, and adjust accordingly.”

 

Steve glared at him. Tony was, of course, completely correct, but Steve couldn’t seem to accept that. He was wrong, he had to be, because he shouldn’t look that smug if he was right.

 

“How temporarily?”

 

“No idea.”

 

They both stared up at the sky for a while. Someone needed to do something about that dead alien. Someone needed to give them a ride home, because Tony couldn’t fly the chopper like this. Someone needed to run a diagnostic on Tony’s suit.

 

“That cloud looks like a horse head.”

 

Tony tilted sideways. “Dragon.”

“Yeah?” Steve tilted too. “Yeah!”

 

“But its head is coming off.”

 

Steve suddenly felt like he needed to save the dragon. Was that right, for a hero? But he liked the dragon. His nose started running, and he sniffed.

 

“Look look, hey. That one’s all bumpy.”

 

“They’re just clouds,” Steve grumbled. “They don’t last. Nothing does.”

 

“Wow. Okay, Debbie Downer, I’m calling your dad to pick you up.”

 

“My dad’s dead.”

 

“So’s mine. Deal with it.”

 

Yeah, Tony’s dad was dead too. Steve’s friend, got married, had a son, all without Steve... He sniffed again, rubbing the back of his glove across his nose.

 

Tony had stumbled to his feet and was talking to someone. Someone hilarious, apparently, because he couldn’t stop laughing. When he sat back down it was with a sound like someone had dropped a toolbox down the stairs.

 

“Ow.”

 

“Are you okay?” Steve asked, automatically. Did he care? Well. Yes, he did. “Are you okay?” he said again, in case Tony hadn’t heard it.

 

“Yeah yeah, sore.” He waved his hand. “This is going to be the best story to tell later.”

 

“It’s not funny!”

 

“It’s incredibly funny. And you’re cute when you pout.”

 

“I’m not cute,” Steve pouted.

 

Tony laughed so hard he fell over. “You have no idea! You really don’t know how ridiculously good-looking you are! It’s so unfair.”

 

“I- I know that I’m... attractive.” He wasn’t sure when he’d started touching his face again, but it was still numb. “But it’s not like it’s my fault.”

 

“It’s no one’s fault if they’re hot. Though in your case it partially is. The face, the face is all natural baby duck swan. The body is something you signed up for.”

 

“Well, but...” Something in this conversation was off, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. “You think my face is cute?”

 

“Now me, me, I’m all-natural hotness.” Tony struggled to get upright again, managed only a slight angle, and waved at himself. “And believe me, people have punched this face. A lot. But the hotness won’t quit! And I know it, which is why I’m not a baby duck.”

 

“You’re not making sense.”

 

“This would make perfect sense to Pepper.”

 

“I’m not Pepper!” Steve really wasn’t sure why that offended him.

 

“I know. Pepper is Pepper. You’re Steve.”

 

He wasn’t sure why that soothed him, either. “Why do you keep calling me a baby duck?”

 

“Because, duh, you’re the ugly duckling who became a swan. But you weren’t ugly. Just short. You could have gotten plenty of girls who go for the whole weakness thing.”

 

“You don’t know I wasn’t ugly. Or that I didn’t get girls.”

 

Tony let out a bark of laughter. “Oh Steve, baby, yes I do. Believe me. Anyone who has ever seen you talk to one knows you didn’t get girls.”

 

“Well I do now!” This was not entirely true. A lot of women flirted with him, sure, but Steve hadn’t been on what you might call a ‘date.’ He wasn’t sure how modern dating worked, he couldn’t talk to women in social situations, and even if he could he didn’t meet many that he didn’t work with. He told himself he’d date once he had free time, but he never got around to arranging some.

 

“Only because they throw themselves at you. As would anyone with a pulse who thought they stood a chance.”

 

“Yeah right.”

 

“Anyone. Steve.”

 

“Like who?”

 

“Anyone, Steve. Name someone.”

 

Put on the spot, Steve couldn’t seem to think of a single person. “You?”

 

“Damn right.”

 

The day was much too warm, Steve realized. What kind of place had any business being this warm? “You’d... throw yourself at me?”

 

“I usually class myself as a two-drink bisexual. I suppose you could say I’ve had at least a couple of Sonic Screwdrivers.”

 

Tony laughed uproariously at what Steve had to assume was a joke. He knew a screwdriver was a drink, and those had been sonic blasts, but what was so funny about it?

 

He must have noticed Steve’s blank look, because Tony added, “It’s the Doctor.”

 

“Which doctor?”

 

Tony groaned. “That’s not what you’re supposed to say!”

 

Just in time to save Steve from further confusion, the sound of chopper blades cut through the stillness of the park. He clambered to his feet, but Tony only moved one arm to wave lazily at the black blob in the distance. “Come on!”

 

“They haven’t even landed yet.”

 

“Get up!”

 

“I’m not actually sure I can.”

 

That triggered Steve’s hero instincts, and he kept fussing over Tony until help arrived.

  
They made it back to the mansion without further incident, still inebriated, where Steve was given a quick once-over, a glass of water, and sent to bed. Tony was taken to the infirmary, Steve having been assured that he would be fine. The conversation in the park had been almost completely forgotten as unimportant. Clouds and nonsense. Steve went to bed half-dressed and tried to make it stop spinning for a while, until finally falling asleep.


End file.
